Categories

Archives

Month: June 2017

When you read that I’m about to discuss a book called “Drug Wars” your mind probably goes straight to America’s “war” on illegal drugs, but you would be mistaken. There is a war involving prescription drugs going on right now that many of us had no idea existed. It’s one where pharmaceutical companies always win and the public always loses.

A long time ago, before the mid-80’s (I can’t believe I called that a long time ago!) people realized that very few generic drugs were coming onto the market. Wait, let me back up for those of you who aren’t constantly on meds like myself. So in the fashion world designer label Louis Vuitton sells its “Saint Michel” purse for $1,700. It’s a bag, it holds stuff. You can also find on your better handbag websites what are subtly referred to as “knock off” versions for a couple hundred dollars. It’s also a bag. It also holds stuff. That’s essentially prescription drugs and their generic versions, except in this case the FDA makes sure that the bags are made of the same primary material. A prescription drug can be hundreds of dollars, but a generic drug is nearly identical at a fraction of the price. With the state of health insurance then, and now, there is an interest in generics for public consumption.

Thus in 1984 The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, often called the Hatch-Waxman Act, went into effect to stimulate a generic drug market. The Hatch-Waxman Act is a great idea. It attempts to strike a balance between capitalism and the common good. When a pharmaceutical company goes to market with a new chemical that company is given 5 years of exclusivity. It also streamlined the process for companies looking to bring a generic version to the market. Thus the originator gets 5 years of market dominance to recoup research costs, etc. while providing the eventual competition of a generic to make things easier on the consumer’s pocketbook and encourage pharmaceutical companies to get back to the drawing board to innovate and bring another new drug to market that again gets 5 years of competition free existence. Pretty elegant, right?

What no one saw coming, but let’s face it, those in the know probably did, was that pharmaceutical companies found ways to extend their periods of exclusivity, which of course makes things harder on us sickos of America. The use of lawsuits to stall generics going to market is common, and not surprising once you’re reading “Drug Wars”. What was shocking was the collusion between the manufacturers of the original drug and the companies making the generics. When these companies are in litigation they can fight it out, or settle. Oddly the settlement involves the manufacturer of the original drug paying obscene sums of money to the generic, and the generic agreeing to hold off going to market for several more years. There many ways safe and effect generic drugs are delayed from becoming available, and “Drug Wars” does an amazing job highlighting them. The authors, Robin Feldman and Even Frondorf, also make recommendations on how to fix these issues.

If you’re into intricate bureaucracies, healthcare in America, and a few laugh out loud absurdities then you need to read “Drug Wars: How Big Pharma Raises Prices and Keeps Generics Off the Market” by Robin Feldman and Even Frondorf.

On June 21, 2017 The Grey School of Wizardry announced the first annual “Oberon Award for Master Wizard.” This award is given by the Grey School to recognize public figures who have exhibited visionary wisdom in their lives and works, and who exemplify and/or portray the ideals of Wizardry through outstanding life work dedicated toward the betterment of humankind and of the planet. This is a lifetime achievement award, and is given only once to any individual.

This award of recognition for “Master Wizard” is named in honor of renowned Wizard Oberon Zell, Founder and Headmaster of the Grey School of Wizardry, and an esteemed Elder in the worldwide magickal community since the early 1960s.

Wizardry means “wisdom.” Just as artistry is the craft of an Artist, wizardry is the craft of a Wizard—literally, a “wise one.” Wizards were the first scientists—science means “knowledge,” as wizardry means “wisdom.” Philosophy means “love of wisdom,” and “natural philosophy” was the term used for science up through the 19th century. Many noteworthy scientists are referred to as “Wizards” in their biographies, and brilliant computer engineers today are commonly called “Wizards.” Thomas Edison was known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park,” Steve Jobs was called “The Wizard of Silicon Valley,” and Warren Buffet has been nicknamed the “Wizard of Omaha.”

The Grey School of Wizardry

The Grey School of Wizardry was incorporated as a non-profit Educational Institution in California on March 14, 2005; and in 2007, received a 501(c)(3) from the IRS for charitable and educational purposes. The Grey School provides an extensive program of arcane and Classical studies for youth and adult students.

As a secular online facility of esoteric education, the Grey School is dedicated to preserving the arcane arts and crafts of the past (i.e. “The Wisdom of the Ages”) for generations to follow. The core of those teachings is the School motto: Omnia vivunt; omnia inter se conexa (“everything is alive; everything is interconnected.”).

I received an interesting press release that I’d like to share, along with some personal observations. First, let’s take a look at the press release:

Oil industry veteran David Howell is working a rich new harvest field—saving souls and reducing the prison population through a graphic guidebook, allowing public funds to be diverted to other pressing needs.

Mailing copies of his How To Be a Child of God to prisoners for just 54 cents a copy offers a remarkable 7,000-to-1 return on investment, according to Howell. That’s because keeping someone from returning to prison by helping them find new life and hope as a Christian saves around $31,000 a year in incarceration costs.

With a record 2 million-plus people currently behind bars in the United States, Howell now wants to expand the reach of his Prison Evangelism project by distributing an additional 600,000 free copies of How To Be a Child of God to prison chaplains nationwide. Doing so responds to Jesus’ admonition in Matthew 25 for his followers to remember those in prison, who have an extremely high conversion rate when presented with the gospel.

“Imagine the impact we can have, not only on individuals and their families, but on society as a whole, as they find new purpose and power for living and put prison behind them,” Howell said.

Prison Evangelism research on distribution to date shows that one in 10 people who reads the 52-page booklet makes a commitment to Christ. That means if the national campaign saw a similar response and those impacted did not return to prison, the saving to taxpayers would be $2.1 billion annually. Additionally, the reduced inmate population would be equivalent to closing 60 prisons.

The owner of Houston-based pipeline consulting firm Pipeline Equities, who began working in the oil and gas fields as a 14-year-old “roughneck,” Howell has been active in sharing his faith since becoming a Christian in 1984. That decision “turned my life around,” forsaking drinking and wayward living, he said.

Involved in a wide range of other ministries at Houston’s Second Baptist Church, Howell created How To Be a Child of God in 2010 to pass out to people he met. Asked to provide some copies for use in prisons, he was amazed by the response. Letters began to come in from prisoners transformed by what they read. Among them was a man in jail in Midway, Texas, who wrote how the book touched his heart. “This book has been an inspiration to me. It opened my eyes to some great things and I soaked it all up like a sponge. I’ve finally put my life in His hands after all I’ve been through. Now I’m growing spiritually every day,” he said.

Since then, Howell has printed and distributed more than 110,000 copies to prison chaplains across the country, including 25,000 in Spanish. The book has been translated into a dozen languages, and turned into a 20-minute online video (www.howtobeachildofgod.com). He has also produced two popular follow-up books in similar style, Seeking God Through Prayer & Meditation and Fully Alive and Finally Free.

Howell credits the impact of the publications, written at a sixth-grade reading level, to their simple language and the emphasis on being transformed by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. Additionally, as a standalone piece that can be reread and studied by prisoners who may be isolated or have time on their hands, it self-directs the reader into making a commitment to Christ without requiring others’ involvement.

“These are people who have come to an end of themselves, and that is where all of us must come before we are willing to accept the need for a power greater than ourselves,” said Howell.

John Salmon, chaplain at Diboll Correctional Center in Diboll, Tex., said that How To Be a Child of God had been “very popular” with the men there. “They actually read it,” he wrote. “And you know what happens when people expose themselves to the Word of God.”

George Hanson put copies out for chapel services at the Price Daniel Unit in Snyder, Texas, “and they flew out of the door,” he said.

Having poured more than $300,000 of his own money into the project, Howell formed Prison Evangelism as a nonprofit a couple of years ago. Now 77, with three granddaughters and a great-grandson, he said, “I know that this is the reason God is keeping alive, for this project. It is what he designed and created me to do.”

Before deciding to feature this on my site I asked to receive a copy of “How to Be a Child of God” to read for myself. And although I’m not a Christian lass, I found nothing offensive in the book. It’s essentially a simply written book, with full color illustrations, instructing you on how to accept Jesus Christ into your life. The book also has a section about introducing others to Jesus Christ and I liked the part where it said, “we are not seeking to make bad people good, but spiritually dead people alive”. Making sure that they understand that just because a person hasn’t accepted Jesus Christ doesn’t make them a bad person, just different. The focus of the book is on the internal life of the individual, it’s not a vehicle of radicalization.

I think it’s nice that Howell has found something like this to put his energy into. I believe in prison outreach be it through assorted chaplains, yoga and meditation classes, service dog training, or any number of other programs that are out there. Yes prison is a punishment, but it should be a place that offers rehabilitation too.

Prison Evangelism (www.prisonevangelism.com) is a faith-based nonprofit committed to transforming and rehabilitating offenders through the distribution of “How to Be a Child of God” and other evangelistic and discipleship materials designed to help prisoners find new purpose and power in life through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Biographers of Gurdjieff are faced with a serious problem: the extreme scarcity of authentic independent documentation of Gurdjieff’s life both up to his appearance in Moscow in 1912-13 and between that time and the Russian Revolution in 1917. Gurdjieff was at least forty years old in 1917, his mind, self-appointed destiny, and fundamental attitudes already fully shaped by previous experience. As regards factual support for that experience, Gurdjieff’s name finds its way into barely a handful of official documents, themselves not wholly reliable. Seismic tumults from the collapse of the old Russian Empire, aggravated by the twentieth century’s immense conflicts and totalitarian vandalism, have sundered and fragmented the historic continuity that might otherwise have yielded collaborative resources from the Caucasus and Transcaucasia regions in which Gurdjieff grew up. Gurdjieff destroyed his own papers during a protracted personal crisis in 1930. We have no volume of Gurdjieff ’s letters or diaries, however slim, to consult. Personal reminiscences of followers, often highly subjective, are frequently at variance with one another and with verifiable facts.

Self-perceived as a man apart, a kind of spy in a confused, damned world, Gurdjieff persistently objectified the human beings around him; the first thing Gurdjieff ’s most influential follower P. D. (Pyotr Demianovich) Ouspensky noticed about his teacher in Moscow in 1915 was that Gurdjieff was always acting. Gurdjieff was many men and appeared in many disguises. Was he hiding something, or was he hiding from something?

In the Introduction to Meetings with Remarkable Men, written after 1924 and published after his death, Gurdjieff explains that part of his purpose in writing the book is to save himself future trouble in having to answer questions from interlocutors concerning his life and, especially, his beliefs. He complains that such questions have been vexatious to concentration on other more pressing matters and regards these questions merely as ones put by “idle curiosity.” Those interested in his personal life are described as “shameless idlers.” To satisfy their curiosity he has nonetheless, “in revising the material destined for this series [he means this book]” decided to present it “in the form of separate independent tales, and to insert in them various ideas which can serve as answers to all the questions often put to me.” The questions put to him are, he says, to do with the “remarkable men” he has encountered; “marvels” seen in the East; questions of the immortality of the soul; whether or not man has free will; the cause of suffering; the credibility of “occult and spiritualistic sciences”; the nature of hypnotism, magnetism, and telepathy; how he first became concerned with such questions; and what then led him to the system practiced in the institute bearing his name.

Gurdjieff, conscious of writing a “new kind” of book, deliberately shaped and reshaped elements of his life and imagination as illustrations or parables of his system. He dramatized ideas. The ideas might be real but individual characters may not be, though their behavior may be truthful regarding human nature or Gurdjieff’s ideas of ideal or misguided action, observed from experience.

The cooked-up book is what the dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) would call a lehrstücke, a “learning-play” or experimental teaching piece wherein actors adopt roles, postures, and attitudes that exceed conventional distinctions between stage and audience, between idea, image, event, and reality, fact and fiction. Brecht famously declared, “Realism does not consist in reproducing reality, but in showing how things really are.”

In the case of Gurdjieff’s book, Gurdjieff is principal actor as well as narrator, and elements of his experiences, fantasies, prior reading, and thoughts–and what he considers the fantasies and expectations of his readers–play the parts; Gurdjieff “sings their tune.” We can see why Gurdjieff has most appealed to actors, dancers, musicians, painters, impresarios, and storytellers, those especially conscious of the role of symbol and its encoding in artificial forms of address. Artists get or “cotton on” to congenial aspects of Gurdjieff, whereas more prosaic, sometimes troubled minds–perhaps his principal following–struggle with it all, often for years, perennially taking the “black devil” too literally, perhaps too respectfully.

Gurdjieff’s idea of science was that of the ancient Magi, not the modern classroom. He barely ever disguised his loathing for what today is called, without irony, higher education. I personally suspect he had a chip on his shoulder about never having graduated from university, so vehement were his repeated digs at “wiseacreing,” an ungainly word (in translation) that occurs with tiresome, arguably obsessive repetitiveness throughout all his writings and talks; followers have picked the word up and scatter it like buckshot from on high at critics. Gurdjieff was a “university of life” type of graduate, cynical about cynics. Perhaps to lend authority to conviction, he even invented from the store of reality and myth the archetypal sacred university of wisdom–the Sarmoung Brotherhood–a body of such exalted spiritual purity and genuine universality of insight that its denizens would never soil their elegant hands with the muck of modern education reliant on paper qualifications and bookish memory learning.

Unlike the professional talkers and establishment-acceptable pundits, the self-taught apparently polymathic, autodidact Gurdjieff could turn his hand to anything and persuade people to do things they never dreamed of doing. He was the man you’d think you’d want in a real crisis. He talked the talk because, as far as he was concerned, he had walked the walk. Unfortunately for historians and biographers he mostly fictionalized the walk. He didn’t want people to follow his footsteps, but to find their own.

Gurdjieff’s “Men” are remarkable insofar as they have recognized that the true value of life comes only when that life consciously acquires mythic dimensions, when one, with feet on the ground, has yet traversed the stars and touched the beyond. Remarkable men have seen something unremarkable men have not. Such men should engage our attention. Was Gurdjieff himself one of them?

About Tobias Churton:
Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, Tobias Churton is a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Rosicrucianism. An Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is a faculty lecturer, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin and Occult Paris. He lives in the heart of England.